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October 2006
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, a voluntary, nongovernmental, peer-based membership association dedicated to promoting standards of excellence and improvement in higher education. Our university has been accredited by Middle States since 1921 and was last reaccredited in 1998. Since major reaccreditation evaluations take place on a 10-year cycle, with a report on the state of the institution at the five-year point between decennial reviews, our next major reaccreditation review will occur in 2007–2008.
This decennial evaluation will involve the Rutgers community in a significant process of institutional self-study, culminating in submission to Middle States of a Self-Study Report. Following the submission of the Self-Study Report, a team of external peer educators will conduct a site visit to evaluate Rutgers in the context of its self-study and the Middle States standards for accreditation and then make a formal set of recommendations concerning the findings of its visit.
Obviously, reaccreditation and a positive evaluation from the site visit team are critical to the stature and recognition of the university, as well as ensuring its eligibility to participate in many national programs and initiatives. Equally important, however, is the process of developing the self-study and its use internally to improve our programs and advance our academic excellence. The process itself also is reflective of the university’s culture and a key indicator of our administrative and governance structures. In this regard, and in keeping with my mission of inclusiveness and open discourse, we will carry out the development of the self-study using broad and representative mechanisms. And we will invite the input and advice of the entire university community into the process using formal and informal means.
The self-study will occur over the course of the 2006–2007 academic year. Under the leadership of a steering committee chaired by Executive Dean of the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Robert Goodman, seven working groups, composed of individuals representative of students, faculty, and staff, will prepare analytical reports on their assigned topics. The steering committee will review and revise the reports of the working groups, produce a draft report which will be shared with the entire university community in fall 2007, consolidate feedback from the university community into the final Self-Study Report, and then host the site visit. I encourage students, faculty, and staff to use this web site to become familiar with the process of our institutional self-study and its future implications for planning and continual improvement.
Middle States permits universities to develop their self-studies topically, that is, to choose one or more areas of particular importance to the institution at the time of evaluation. These topics are not intended to restrict the review in any way. Rather, a well-chosen topic (or topics) can focus attention on a key issue of great substance and illustrate how the university addresses such a matter. It can also demonstrate the university’s ambitions and how it engages issues of importance on a national scale. As you will see, we have chosen to focus our institutional self-study mainly, but not exclusively, on the subject of undergraduate education in the context of a comprehensive, public research university. We focus on undergraduate education because it is a subject that is manifestly attuned to the important reforms embodied in our Transforming Undergraduate Education initiatives now being implemented on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus and is equally relevant to major efforts under way or being planned at our Camden and Newark campuses.
As a result, I believe our self-study work will generate an important “living document”—one that will serve to illuminate Rutgers for the accrediting body and also one that will be multiply useful to us after the reaccreditation team leaves. First, I expect it to help us understand, evaluate, and improve the undergraduate teaching and learning process and the ways we assess student learning outcomes. Second, I expect its analysis of our programmatic strengths and challenges in all areas of undergraduate education to yield recommendations that will greatly benefit all those who are currently engaged in implementing changes or who, in the years ahead, will be planning improvements to the quality of the undergraduate experience Rutgers provides. Third, I hope that what we accomplish in undergraduate education, informed by this self-study, places Rutgers on the national stage of discussions in this crucial arena.
Interested members of the university community who wish to provide input can contact the chair of the steering committee, and he will forward your thoughts and ideas to the appropriate working groups, or, if you have any questions about the selected topics, please directly contact the cochairs of the working groups. This web site will keep you informed about discussion forums in fall 2007.
Richard L. McCormick
President
12/12/2006 |
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